Late Spurt Lifts Princeton Past Yale

Josh Davis. (photo by Sam Rubin '95, Yale Sports Publicity)

Jan 30, 2010

Michael Sands Scores 14 Points To Pace Bulldogs

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Douglas Davis scored nine of his team-high 13
points in the second half to lift Princeton to a hard-fought 58-45
Ivy League victory over Yale before an Alumni Day crowd of 2,016 at
the John J. Lee Amphitheater. Michael Sands paced the Bulldogs with
14 points and six rebounds.

Yale (8-13, 2-2 Ivy) rallied from a 10-point deficit to tie the
score at 39 on Alex Zampier's jumper with 10 minutes left in the
second half. The Tigers, though, answered with a 9-1 run over the
next 3 minutes, 20 seconds, capped by a Pawel Buczak layup. The
Bulldogs never got closer than six the rest of the way.

"We battled back. I like our grittiness. I like the way we
fought. We just don't have much margin for error," said James
Jones, The Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Men's
Basketball at Yale.

Princeton, which has won nine of its last 10 games, shot 51.1
percent from the field and held the Bulldogs to 35 percent.

"We had opportunities that we didn't finish," Jones said. "We
need to be stronger in traffic."

The Tigers (11-5, 2-0 Ivy) outscored Yale 22-16 in the paint and
outrebounded the Bulldogs 29-24.

"We wanted to make sure we stopped them on the outside," Jones
said. "They are a good shooting team. We thought we could go
man-to-man at the basket, but we didn't do a very good job."

Zampier finished with 13 points for the Bulldogs. He also had
one steal which gives him 157 in his career, tying him with Daniel
Okonkwo for the most in school history. Greg Mangano added eight
points and five rebounds, and Porter Braswell had five points.

Davis was the only Princeton player to score in double figures.
Kareem Maddox had nine points, while Buczak and Ian Hummer both
scored eight.

The first half featured two ties and four lead changes. The
Bulldogs took a 15-14 lead on Paul Nelson's layup midway through
the half, but Princeton was ahead by five with 5:20 remaining. Yale
cut the deficit to one on Sands' layup with 54 seconds left, but
the Tigers scored the final four points, including a Zach Finley
layup off a steal with four seconds left, to take a 32-27 lead the
intermission. The advantage grew to 39-29 before Yale ran off 10
consecutive points to tie it.

The Bulldogs are back in action next Friday when they play at
Cornell. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m.

NOTES: A large contingent of former Yale players returned for
Alumni Day... Both teams coaching staffs wore sneakers as part of
the Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers Awareness Weekend, a
collaborative initiative of the American Cancer Society and the
National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC). Participating
coaches wore sneakers instead of dress shoes with their suits
during weekend games to demonstrate their support for the American
Cancer Society and its vision of a world with less cancer and more
birthdays.